Sunday, February 20, 2011

I spotted these at the checkout counter of my local grocery store. I love, love, love coconut, so despite my son's warning that coconut M&Ms were just wrong, I bought them and eagerly opened up the bag on the way home. I couldn't even wait to get home to try them . . . And, well . . . they were not very good . . . I could hardly taste the coconut!

I turned over the bag to read the ingredients and this is the list (capitalization theirs):

Pre-heat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a bundt pan, or spray with PAM for Baking. Combine cake ingredients and mix well until the lumps are gone. Pour mixture into bundt pan and bake 40-45 minutes until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in bundt pan for about 10 minutes. Invert on serving plate and allow to cool completely. Prepare glaze and pour over cake.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

There's nothing my son, David, likes better than a rich, moist chocolate cake. This recipe is simplicity itself, and chocolate seemed appropriate given that a) Valentine's Day is coming up and that puts me in the mood for chocolate, b) my husband is traveling this week, so I needed to make something that I knew David would eat, and c) . . . well, the powdered sugar covering the cake reminded me of snow, something that's been very much on our minds lately . . .

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a bundt pan, or use PAM spray for baking. Mix all ingredients with a mixer until combined and no lumps remain. Pour into bundt pan. Bake for one hour, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven. Let cool in bundt pan for at least 10 minutes, invert on serving plate and let cool completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

I love this bundt pan, the arches in the mold make pretty impressions on the cake. It reminds me a little of this other white stuff and the impressions it created last week against our garage door . . .

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I left work at 2:25 P.M. today. As I write this, we are in the middle of a blizzard, and are expecting the biggest snowstorm to hit Chicago since January 1967. The wind gusts are incredible! The snow has been falling steadily since early in the afternoon, and forecasters are telling us that we are not even in the thick of it yet!

I got home at 5:00 P.M. My husband hadn't made it home yet, and he normally has an even longer commute than I do. Baking was the perfect activity to keep worry at bay, and . . . it's Tea Bread Tuesday!

This recipe came from the back of a box of Hodson Mill unprocessed wheat bran and what attracted me to it at first was the name of the bread - Cinnamon Raisin Bran Bread. I'm very fond of every single one of those ingredients! So, in between looking out the window, and worrying about Lee, and taking a long distance phone call from a cousin who entreated me not to drive tomorrow because she had had a "vision," I baked the bread.

The bread was O.K., nothing particularly special about it, but it did fill the house with wonderful, cozy smells, so when my husband walked in, he had a warm treat, and a fresh pot of coffee waiting for him. He got home at 6:00 P.M. Here's the recipe: